The invention is related to improving a cooling air supply guide apparatus having a diverging compartment with fan forced circulation, and more particularly to improving a cooling air supply guide apparatus which prevents the vortex turbulent motion of the cooling air fed into the refrigerating compartment and feeds it laminarly into the freezing compartment when the refrigerating compartment is not used.
In a conventional cooling air supply guide apparatus in a refrigerator, the guide apparatus comprises a shutter to close a cooling air incoming passage of a refrigerating compartment when the refrigerating compartment is not in use.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, cooling air generated from an evaporator 4 is diverged into an incoming passage 6 for a freezing compartment and an incoming passage for a refrigerating compartment by a fan 5 of the guide apparatus 1. When both the freezing compartment and the refrigerating compartment are to be used, a control plate 9 in a damper system 8 is opened and cooling air in the incoming passage 7 is fed to the refrigerating compartment 3 and cooling air in the incoming passage 6 is fed to the freezing compartment 2. When the refrigerating compartment 3 is not to be used, the control plate 9 is closed, and cooling air in the incoming passage 7 flows around and is fed to the freezing compartment 2 through the incoming passage 6. The above structure is disclosed in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 4,614,092.
The incoming passage 7 closed by the control plate 9 is a closed and narrow passage. Cooling air flow in the closed and narrow passage is turbulent and flow spirally in the incoming passage 7 and to the intaking chamber 10 to make the cooling air in the intaking chamber 10 vortex. The vortex flow results in resistance against the fan 5 and increases the load of refrigerator, decreasing the rotary power of the fan 5, thereby losing the balance of the fan 5 and causing noises in the guide apparatus.